Very happy with mine, best Linux laptop I’ve ever had. I have the 13”.
Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
21–30 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#22Instead of contributing to more electronic waste and as an economic purchase, I... use used ThinkPads. Advantages: Zero new electronic waste created. Several 'new' machines are cheaper than a Framework. Small upgrades plentiful and cheap. A major upgrade of a'new' machine still cheaper and more environmentally friendly than a Framework. Better battery life, keyboard, ergonomic design, ports, hinges LOL, etc. Try one…
ThinkPads often come up in these discussions but does not the same apply for example for business versions of Dell laptops? Such as Latitude and Precision. I kept one alive for almost ten years, occasionally replacing parts with secondhand parts. It still works perfectly but I have it as a spare now.
ThinkPads are timeless square black boxes with a red trackpoint. Having the same design since 1992 definitely makes them iconic, and this probably helped in creating a large fanbase. Realistically you might get the same mileage with a Dell, but to fans, it feels different.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#23I used a Framework 13" as my daily driver for 3 years. I still have it, and now I also have a Framework 16", which has been my daily driver for the last six months. The user serviceability and upgrade stories are real. The hardware isn't as svelte as Apple's, but mine has traveled all over the world and has yet to have any major issues. The one hardware failure I had was that the USB-C half of the charging cable on m…
I love mine too (have owned every 13" they have made either personally or at work, plus the new 16"). Having the actual usb recessed and having a sacrificial usb-c as the one you use has saved taken me from breaking usb-c ports at roughly one a year to zero. The upgradeability and serviceability is real as well.
That beings said, my complaints about them are: They are a few hundred dollars more expensive than comparable hardware most of the time.
They were pretty slow releasing bios updates, although they seem to be getting faster at that.
There is no kensington lock.
After seeing the Linus tour of the factory where they fully assemble the DIY edition for testing and then take it back apart for shipping. I'm kind of annoyed. Find a different way to discount home users, you're spending more labor to get a lower price for your product.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#24Instead of contributing to more electronic waste and as an economic purchase, I... use used ThinkPads. Advantages: Zero new electronic waste created. Several 'new' machines are cheaper than a Framework. Small upgrades plentiful and cheap. A major upgrade of a'new' machine still cheaper and more environmentally friendly than a Framework. Better battery life, keyboard, ergonomic design, ports, hinges LOL, etc. Try one…
I do exactly the same with Apple laptops. Just replaced a 2015 MBP (that I bought used in 2019) with a 2021 MBA. Before that I had a 2011 MBA. New one is 16GB/2TB and was $700. It’s the fastest computer i have ever used by a wide margin - editing tens of thousands of raw files in Lightroom, editing 4K footage (which previous machines could not even do).
I sold the old MBP for $200, so I’m spending around $500 every 4-5 years and getting thousands of hours of use.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#25I bought an Intel i7 like 2 years ago. My takeaways: - I would rather buy a MacBook now, the whole ecosystem is nicer. This is not Framework’s fault, Apple’s ecosystem just works and at some point you just want stuff that works. I absolutely love the AirPods and there’s always some minor annoyances when pairing with the laptop. - The removable port adapters are nice but not that useful in reality. I occasionally chan…
> Overall I think the concept is really nice and I am glad that I supported the company. However, I think that making conventional laptops more repairable is good enough. Full modularity is a cool concept but it does seem to have a lot of drawbacks. Give me the ability to easily change the hard drive, the RAM, the battery, the keyboard/trackpad and that is sufficient for me. Maybe the screen.
I doubt that changing the mobo / cpu is something done very frequently, so I could accept it to be a bit more involved (as in require multiple screws instead of just pulling it out or similar).
For that, something like an HP EliteBook would be good enough. The laptops are fairly OK if you don't insist on good quality screens. They're easily serviceable for the most common parts (the battery is held in place with screws, the ssd and ram are removable, the screen hinges are screwed in, but are metal and quite robust).
I don't know how easy it is to find spare parts for these actual laptops, but my point is that this could maybe be a better compromise than the full-modular framework. Of course, HP has to change the models every year to look new, but a dedicated manufacturer wouldn't have to.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#26I used a Framework 13" as my daily driver for 3 years. I still have it, and now I also have a Framework 16", which has been my daily driver for the last six months. The user serviceability and upgrade stories are real. The hardware isn't as svelte as Apple's, but mine has traveled all over the world and has yet to have any major issues. The one hardware failure I had was that the USB-C half of the charging cable on m…
I love mine too (have owned every 13" they have made either personally or at work, plus the new 16"). Having the actual usb recessed and having a sacrificial usb-c as the one you use has saved taken me from breaking usb-c ports at roughly one a year to zero. The upgradeability and serviceability is real as well. That beings said, my complaints about them are: They are a few hundred dollars more expensive than compara…
Tbh it probably is cheaper for them to test that it powers up ... There would be nothing worse than building a laptop to find it was an RMA deal.... I would expect that the social media backlash could kill the product...
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#27The main issue is the battery life isn’t competitive
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#28I have a Framework 13 (12th Gen). I have no complaints about the hardware quality.
I love the replace everything concept. I rarely do that though, my ports are always the same - 2x usb-c, 1x usb-a, nic (bulky I remove that one for traveling and replace it with another usb-c).
Having said all that, I would not buy another one right now. The software side of things is just not up to what I expect. They still have not figured out lvfs for this notebook; the last bios update I could install was a manual EFI installer (which is beta at this point it in time I guess, only really "production" ready update is windows based installer). Also the bios I have is now a year old, and there only has been one non-beta bios upgrade in the whole lifetime of this model (~2.5 years). So the software side of things is just miserable... At this point in time I guess the next machine will be something with coreboot+lvfs and regular, timely updates (still taking suggestions ...). I guess I would be willing to give a framework+coreboot situation another try in a couple of years. The main reason for buying this is reusablilty once I decide to move on to the next hardware generation.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#29I've loved mine. Some issues with the heat management and fans--but that's also been a Linux/laptop thing--fresh thermal paste, a new (warranted!) fan replacement part, and finally figuring out best drivers setup have brought it roughly in line with a Dell or whatever.
Really enjoyed when I recently upgraded the memory on my tower last year, and threw the old ones on the Framework and it worked great. The expansion slots are a bit gimmicky but still surprisingly useful--when my wfh setup changed recently it was simple to change the mDP over to the other side and then never having to think about a dongle.
But I plan to actually upgrade the motherboard this year, so we'll see how that goes and looking forward to reading others experiences.
Re: Ask HN: Does the Framework laptop stand the test of time?
#30I've loved mine. Some issues with the heat management and fans--but that's also been a Linux/laptop thing--fresh thermal paste, a new (warranted!) fan replacement part, and finally figuring out best drivers setup have brought it roughly in line with a Dell or whatever. Really enjoyed when I recently upgraded the memory on my tower last year, and threw the old ones on the Framework and it worked great. The expansion s…
> but that's also been a Linux/laptop thing--fresh thermal paste, a new (warranted!) fan replacement part,
Is there a (video-)guide on how to do that? Why was the fan replacement warranted?